The Unsure Entrepreneur

The Unsure Entrepreneur Podcast_ S1E5
Wed, May 08, 2024 3:30PM • 31:51
How to Quit Your Job to Start a Business Development Company
SPEAKERS
Roger Pierce, Nate Simpson

Intro 00:00
You're listening to the unsure entrepreneur podcast with Roger Pierce. Whether you're scribbling business ideas on a napkin, or wrestling with this should I shouldn't tie question, get ready to explore the realities, the risks and the rewards of entrepreneurship, as we share the stories, scars and successes of small business owners.

Roger Pierce 00:22
Hello, and welcome to another episode of The unsure entrepreneur podcast. Nice to have you here. I'm Roger Pierce, your host, thank you for joining us. And I'm so excited today to have our friend and colleague Nate Simpson. Hello, Nate.

Nate Simpson 00:35
Hey, Roger.

Roger Pierce 00:36
Thank you so much for taking the time, my friend,

Nate Simpson 00:38
thank you for the invitation. It's been great to reconnect after a few years and glad to have the opportunity here to chat a little bit about entrepreneurship.

Roger Pierce 00:47
Absolutely, we're gonna dig into your journey into this crazy world we call self employment. Nate Simpson is a seasoned business development professional with over 25 years of experience in engineering, and business development, specifically in the protection and building code sectors. He has served in significant leadership roles and founded recently, Nate Simpson business development company focused on strategic growth and client engagement within the architecture, engineering and construction sectors. That's awesome. So I mean, my first question is just to give you more context, because I want people to understand you know, what your business is all about? Before we talk about your journey. Can you tell me more about what you do and who you're serving?

Nate Simpson 01:33
To skip stones quickly across the pond, I help clients in the architecture, engineering and construction sectors to make more money, and to retain existing clients. That is, through examining their processes, structures, their culture related to their business development practices. That's about as concisely as I can I can put it,

Roger Pierce 02:00
that's a great, very concise answer. So give me an example give elaborate on the types of clients are working with

Nate Simpson 02:06
one engagement has been with a small specialized engineering company, led by two partners. And both doesn't staff when I started with them. And they were looking for some assistance in regard to taking a look at their own existing structures and processes relative to business development, and how that might be able to amplify all the great work that the team was already doing. And perhaps uncover new opportunities for additional client engagement, additional efficiencies internally, by examining their deeply their processes and seeing where they could be more efficiency and proposal production processes and other things like that. That's been a long term sustained engagement, covering initial audit phase with report and recommendations, and then providing assistance to develop implementation plans related to those recommendations, and then help them get on with the doing of the work. And then another engagement, which focuses more on very targeted and specific sort of Allah carte menu options, if you will, an engagement with another engineering company, in the fire protection engineering sector, to examine some of their internal processes as well, and working with the partners there to help to help address to help uncover opportunities to again do things more efficiently in regard to their business development and in broad based marketing processes. Wow.

Roger Pierce 03:32
So you're helping people with a lot of different things. Are companies a lot of different things? And why? Why do you think they're coming to you?

Nate Simpson 03:42
I think in part, it's because of a few different factors. One is that I come from an technical background. So I was to expand a little bit on that I was involved in the fire protection industry for about 27 years. And the first 17 of that was on the technical side, dealing with fire codes and building code applications and helping architects, other engineers, developers, owners understand what they need to do in order to comply with the fire protection, life safety requirements of codes, whether it be for a new design or renovation retrofit, or some issue with the ongoing operation of a building. So I have that as my my background. And then about 10 years ago, 11 years ago now, I had the opportunity with with one company I was employed with LRI engineering to get into a business development role. And that was as manager of business development. It really provided great opportunity to explore my curiosity with business development, and have a bit of an entrepreneurial itch to scratch but has been a bit risk averse to test it out. So it gave me at least an opportunity to add something else to my career, a new way to engage with clients. And so there was a lot of great learning experience there over 10 years in that role, that really sort of made it clear that for me in around March 2022, that this is what I wanted to do full time.

Roger Pierce 05:13
So let's dig into that a bit. Because you know, when I met you, and full disclosure I met met Nate, we are members of Toastmasters. And we had lots of times are together. We met Nate when he had this job at the previous company. And then now I'm coming to you, and you've been in business now for, I guess two years. Exactly. Right. Coming up on two years in July. Yeah. So I want to, you know, explore that journey, because people who are listening are on the fence about self employment. And maybe they like you two years ago had a job. And then something happened, whether they fold up an itch, they couldn't resist scratching, or they got you know, downsized or whatever, people have different reasons for getting into entrepreneurship. So I want to probe a bit you share why you made this decision to get your own business.

Nate Simpson 06:02
And again, as I alluded to, in my prior comments there in part of my prior comment, so it has been a little bit risk averse, or not even a little bit, quite risk averse. So any career move that I did make up to them, was always within dried on a contract in hand. I knew where I was going next, as 2022 began, and I really felt the need that that there was something else needed, I didn't have a clearer picture of what that exactly was going to be. So when I took the decision to leave, in March of 2022, I was really open to different possibilities in a way that I hadn't been before. Also, with the benefit of having quite a developed quite a wide network of contacts and and mentors. I had the benefit over April and May of having quite a number of discussions with various contacts to help to help me sort of sift through in this time where I was decompressing from my my prior engagement, my prior employment, and then just really trying to find what was true for me again, so with the benefit of time and those conversations, so I spoke of what really came true is that yeah, no, the passion is business development. And in addition, that what I felt I would enjoy is the opportunity to have variety. And perhaps there was a way to make those things come together in a way that I could help different organizations with business development, be able to get a window into their operations and perhaps help them in some beneficial way.

Roger Pierce 07:54
So let me make sure I got this right. Your previous job for the business, you were in business development, correct? Yes. Yeah. Right. You're doing business development there. So now, rather than take another job doing business development for someone else, you said, You know what, I can do this as a independent, enjoy the variety of a number of different companies and do it that way? That was the appeal. Yes, yeah. And

Nate Simpson 08:15
as a, as that picture was developing, more and more, you know, obviously doing all the necessary things of doing the market research and qualifying what your market base is and who your ideal customer is, and your customer personas and all that good stuff. What I found was that there was actually a real appetite for a need for that sort of third party assistance that can come in to an organization that's perhaps a smaller scale, professional services firm, maybe five, even you know, in fact that I'm helping a sole proprietor architect right now. So as few as one person, but five to 10, to maybe 2025 staff, that are seller do or lead. And that might sound like a bit of a jargony thing right now, but, but that's essentially where the principles of the firm are the ones that secure the work and are part of the doing of the work in addition to the other staff members in the team, but that they don't otherwise have a dedicated business development or marketing position on staff, however, they see the need and the benefit of having one and oftentimes to the part of what's part of the calculus is the ability to afford a full time role. So in some way, with my background, which includes technical service delivery, as well, so I understand that aspect. And as well, you know, the business development experience, can help serve and provide some support to to those types of organizations in a way that's meaningful for them. Then that's really even narrowing and a bit perhaps too much, but, but that's what I determined was my ideal client base.

Roger Pierce 09:59
You're touching on so many of my favorite themes that are so a you're hyper focused on a sector, you're hyper focused on us on a service you're providing outsource business development for smaller operations that can't don't have the bandwidth to pull it off internally. Or maybe you're growing the NOC array to hire a full time person yet, so they hire you kind of thing, right? And I know you, you're very thorough, you research the hell out. Because I want to go back to what you said a while ago, your risk adverse, right, but your own admission. And that's such a big thing, Nate, that's probably the biggest thing that holds back entrepreneurs. So maybe we could talk about that, you know, how did you being admitted the risk adverse? How did you deal with that?

Nate Simpson 10:40
Well, by looking at what scares me most, and seeing how I can wrestle that down, what is it about a factor, whether it's a financial factor, that was well, well, taken care of by LMI, great firm, does amazing work in the fire protection engineering space. And so you know, there is a financial and fiscal impact there. So how to wrestle that down, I have the benefit of having a lot of different colleagues that also do similar work to what I do with other points of focus as well. You know, some might see as my competitors, I see them actually, as my colleagues and peers in the industry. But how do I wrestle that down? How do I find a positioning? That's, that's attractive to a potential prospect? And then you get into discussions about well, what is it about me that could, you know, I guess, stumbling through an answer to get to that often used phrase of impostor syndrome, like, Could this actually like, who's gonna buy meat, buy into meat, so there's a lot of that are, you know, wrestling through, but just trusting in the experience that I had, trusting in the mentors in my network and trusting in the vision that I saw, helped minimize that sort of anxiety or risk base to a point of, I don't want to say comfort, but to a manageable level. And as well, you know, I have to acknowledge my wife, Tara, she's been running her own business for 17 years. And so there is a lot, she's a mentor of mine, just in terms of how to set up and establish your own business, you know, seeing the the challenges and the opportunities that she's had as part of her journey in entrepreneurship, with her own business in nutrition, as a Registered nutritionist, personal coach, certified personal trainer, endurance athletics coach, and that whole realm, obviously, very different from architecture, engineering and construction, but but the thematic principles underpinning entrepreneurship, or the bridge, they're being able to really lean on her for, you know, a lot of different input, in a way to be very honest and transparent, getting the permission to take this risk, if only for hearing it from her myself, that this was something that would be very beneficial for me in a lot of ways. And that, clearly, I had a passion for an idea that this could work. And then that last little helpful push, helpful push from from Tara there to say, Yeah, let's let's do this.

Roger Pierce 13:20
What a great partner. Now I know she helped you as well, probably now that I know she was if she's a trainer and nutritionist, she probably helped you with your triathlons. Oh, yeah.

Nate Simpson 13:31
marathons and all of that. Yes. Yeah.

Roger Pierce 13:33
Not just in business. She she's she's a good partner all around. Well, that's very interesting. And again, another theme, so both of you now self employed. Wow. Double Jeopardy. I know, what you do to you know, mitigate that uncertain cash flow, going into a business? Did you save up money? Did you use the money from your previous, your severance, what did you do to kind of smooth a path that connection between the two? In terms

Nate Simpson 13:56
of the financial aspects, I can't speak too much of how things wrapped up with the previous employer. But But all of this to say that that was something that still took a good depth of discussion with Tara from, from my financial perspective, it was in fact me leaving making the decision to leave LRI. That was a factor in the compensation side of things to be certain. But what weighed heaviest and the balances that I was contemplating was that there is just something that I needed. That was just different from where I was at, and in the examination of the financial trade off versus say, you get into factors of health in various respects, that also come into play. It's not just about financial, you know, the financial picture. financial picture is important. I have to have a roof over my head, food in the fridge and health over Roll. You know,

Roger Pierce 15:01
that's interesting just to dwell on when you say health mean like a mental health stress the job can be stressful any job.

Nate Simpson 15:06
Yeah to, again to just be as open and transparent as possible. Yeah, it was physical health, mental health, and that played a significant factor in my decision.

Roger Pierce 15:16
Wow, that's great. I don't get to hear that very often. But it's so important that you said that and thank you for sharing it, you know, the job can be stressful, and maybe you just tired of doing it for whatever reasons people need to move on. So all these things, I'm so curious about them that are factors in people's decision about jumping in and moving ahead, but you'd left the job knowing you're going to start a business, right? There wasn't a period of limbo, like, Oh, am I gonna get now?

Nate Simpson 15:38
There was a period of limbo? Yes, I know, I described it. And just in case I wasn't clear previously. So I left in March of 2022. My lights on Nate Simpson, Business Development turned on in July of 2022. So there was, you know, April, in May, where I was doing that intensive sort of examination and discussions with my network, and mentors, just to see what would be possible, different options that I was contemplating. It wasn't one day leave LRI. And then the next day startup needs some some business development, there was a period of time of examination just to see again, in this period where I was, say, I'll say decompressing from the previous employment, just to see what was what was true for me. And again, that settled note on the business development side. And ultimately, I just thought that I would really enjoy that aspect of variety that comes with helping different organizations with their business development needs.

Roger Pierce 16:42
Yeah. And you saw your wife doing it, right. She was a bit of a role model probably. And absolutely. Working that long, you've got lots of connections and networks, and you know, the old expression, your your network is your net worth. But that's proving a bit true for you, because it's allowed you to get some of those client leads going, right? Absolutely.

Nate Simpson 17:02
And it was foundational in terms of being able to be connected with Colin Lobo, the President and partner of global consulting by first and to this point, longest client. So it was through my network, that I was put in touch with Colin, and then, you know, after some discussions, Colin and I, and calling so a business partner, or ash Mara took the decision to to get into an engagement. And that's been similar to my other engagements have come through my my networks,

Roger Pierce 17:34
your advice to entrepreneurs is, grow your network.

Nate Simpson 17:39
Absolutely. And be curious. That's a big thing. For me, I love having the opportunity now to really dive into things. Even if it doesn't, it doesn't even necessarily need to translate into a business or contract. For me, I'm just curious about many different things in, in, in the sectors in which specialize, but then other ones that feed into the architecture, engineering and construction sectors.

Roger Pierce 18:06
So I've often said that running a business, you'll learn more in the first six months running your own business. So you will six years on a job. There's so much to do the marketing and selling the accounting, they replacing the toner cartridge in the printer, all this stuff, it's up to you. Now, that's part of the thing that people love about being self employed. But also another thing that scares people because oh my god, now I have to do all the marketing and selling. And fortunately, the selling part is good for you. And for a lot of people, that's the scariest role.

Nate Simpson 18:33
And heck, even for me. So it's something that I haven't spent a second, looking back and regretting the decision, though, there has been a lot of learnings and challenges, you know, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. And just taking those challenges as learning opportunities, and as I say, you know, engaging with that, keeping that spirit of curiosity at the forefront.

Roger Pierce 19:04
How are you investing in yourself? You say, there's challenges. I remember while Toastmasters that was investing in yourself, are you doing training or skills development or things you want to learn? You

Nate Simpson 19:15
know, it's been a long standing engagement. You know, I'm a member of a group called the Society for marketing professional services. And that is Yeah, and that is an organization based out of the US but with a chapter in Ontario, that caters specifically to business development and marketing professionals in the architecture, engineering and construction sectors. That's been a group that I've been a part of since around 2016 2017. And it was so beneficial to me to have found that group and engage with them and then professional development that they offer to help brush up skills in marketing and business development that I needed to learn when I when I made that transition from technical to this Since development capacity to have the benefit of developing, you know, further connections and marketing and business development and principles and leadership, elements of architecture, engineering and construction sector firms, that community was invaluable to me being is and remaining part of that community is valuable to me both from personal perspective, professional perspective, and as pertains to the point that you raised about professional development.

Roger Pierce 20:25
That's a good tip, get out there get plugged in, join your industry groups. Not only is it building you up professionally, but building you up business wise, I guess with some leads and connections. This is so important. This is all good stuff entrepreneurs need to hear, you know, so I was gonna ask you a question how to yours and How has being in business for yourself changed you at all? Do you think it's changed you,

Nate Simpson 20:46
I would say it hasn't changed the core of me, it's certainly helped to regulate some of my, I'll say more challenging traits, in terms of anxiousness, and so on that just again, having the focus of being able to focus on business development, specifically. And as well, being able to focus on having a mix of work types and client engagement types, that engages me substantially, and also in different ways that, you know, there's always that, you know, excitement there, when I'm helping my clients and helping them uncover learnings about their own organization, or, you know, the opportunity that I get to learn about, say, security, the security industry, in depth, from my clients, are the architecture, the ins and outs of running an architecture practice from one of my clients. And it's that real enjoyment over that, over those types of those types of occasions, those types of engagements, those types of attributes to what I'm doing now that that really sustained me,

Roger Pierce 21:56
maybe a better way to phrase My question is, sounds like being an entrepreneur is brought out the best in you. And you're doing, you know, things you enjoy and doing things well and learning new skills. Yes,

Nate Simpson 22:07
yeah. In a short way of answering your question, yes.

Roger Pierce 22:12
That's one of the hidden passions, what am I love doing it, but being an entrepreneur, too, is you get to know your clients, like you said, you're learning new fields, you wouldn't normally learn about architecture, or the architecture business. I've got some clients, I work with him in accounting, software, industry and banks, I work with banks, and I know more about those sectors than I ever thought I would. Just from doing some content marketing work, you know, you get to know your clients. And it's kind of fun and challenging and enlightening. You're expanding our universe. Just watching the clock here to a couple questions, more fun questions for you, maybe? How do you balance your personal life and business demands, especially when you got a self employed spouse, flexibility,

Nate Simpson 22:51
being flexible to certain degrees, what I'm inflexible about is maintaining physical activity. That's a huge thing for me, liking and making sure that physical fitness aspect, it's inflexible in terms of making sure that I'm carving out time in my day, every day for that activity.

Roger Pierce 23:14
I want to ask you about that, though. So hang on, hang on a sec. So you've got a big client deadline? Are the clients on the phone? Do you give in? Or do you go for that run?

Nate Simpson 23:23
That's where the flexibility comes in. And certainly, if something comes up ad hoc, that needs response, then I'm absolutely there for that, where things can be sort of planned in advance and structured. And that's how I take care of it most times, but But certainly, if that is one aspect that is non negotiable. In my days, when it happens in the day, is a bit flexible, that's where the flexibility comes in. But that's that's a big aspect for me, and helping manage the demands.

Roger Pierce 23:55
As they say, entrepreneurs enjoy a lot of flexibility in their schedule, they can choose to work any 12 hours in a day they want sometimes 16 But that's a real joy is being able to do what you love sounds like you're being true to yourself. And that's important to you can't get so lost in self employment that client work first and you forget your mental and physical health and you're a good example of keeping that balance.

Nate Simpson 24:21
And then on the creative side as well. Just reading and writing and having time for that is really important. For

Roger Pierce 24:29
me, that's important to stimulate the mind relax. You're gonna have to run soon, but a couple quick questions. Tell me briefly what do you love the most now you've been in for two years. What do you love the most about self employment? What do you hate? Give maybe you can give me one of each.

Nate Simpson 24:43
The word that immediately came to my mind on hearing your question was autonomy. I love the autonomy that I have. Now with that comes responsibility of course but but as a first reaction which first came to my mind was the word autonomy. What I A hate or what I'm challenged by, is, you know, the feeling that I just still don't know enough. Somebody that that is a mentor of mine, that executive coach said that, as a coach, you are your clients ceiling. So when she said that to me, in this was a while ago, you know, over a year and a half ago that that always stuck with me. And I try my darndest to bring that approach to my engagements with my clients, making sure that I am bringing enough to them enough value enough expertise, you know, so forth. You know, again, I'll characterize that as as a challenge, rather than something that I dislike, that challenge and that responsibility is what keeps me driving forward. But I'm always I'm always conscious of that of that challenge.

Roger Pierce 25:59
Feeling like we don't know enough. And you know what, that's again, don't beat yourself up. I've been at this for 30 years, and I still don't know much. Oh, geez, Roger. But you know, it's it's part of the journey. It's part of the journey, you learn stuff. And you know, I got the business books here, you can learn all kinds of stuff. It's part of the journey, enjoy that journey. Accept the fact you know, enough for the moment, I think, obviously, you're doing well, and you're gonna learn as you go. Right? Absolutely.

Nate Simpson 26:23
And that, that ties back into what I said much earlier in our discussion around your book, being curious, and how that can help support the learnings that will be important and transformational, and how I can serve my clients even better. And and and provide that I'll say value proposition is another jargony term to prospects to get them curious about what potentially I could help them with.

Roger Pierce 26:51
I love it such great answers. And now I'm going to ask you for the the closing advice here. So looking back on your two years, what's your one piece of advice for someone who is named Samsung two years ago, when thinking about getting into this themselves?

Nate Simpson 27:05
Don't let planning get in the way of action?

Roger Pierce 27:08
Okay, can you explain that for me a little bit. Is that paralysis by analysis, because I suffer from that now. And then,

Nate Simpson 27:17
yeah, it touches on the same team. You know, I talked about being risk adverse and how I tried to mitigate risk to the extent that I could, and so forth in structuring things and setting things up. You know, if it's a new initiative, or a new client that I want to engage with their prospect, and I'm seeing, you know, how, what's the best fit, and so on, so forth. And in other aspects. So I'll stop myself from going down rabbit holes of individual examples. But in a similar fashion, I will want to make sure that I'm methodical in my approach to that opportunity that I am structured and consider the various attributes and things that come into play when considering initiative X, that at a certain point, it does tap into that, as you made mention of that analysis, paralysis by analysis type of type of scenario where it's just like, you just got to get going progress over perfection, and just have a plan that you can stand behind, and then get moving with it. And then with that experience, as you act on that plan, as you engage with that plan, you'll get inputs from that experience. And then and then you're just sort of in this process of evaluating and assessing and responding to those inputs. And then being informed by those by those actions and activities that that come with getting underway with the doing of the things very

Roger Pierce 28:45
insightful, and very helpful. And thank you for opening up and sharing that, you know, and, well, I think what you're saying is done is better than perfect, right? And you've got to just get out there and do it. I mean, software companies do this all the time, right. And eight, I mean, the big companies, they ship the software full of bugs that they know are there to get, get the customer feedback, but also just to get the thing out there. Because they know they're going to make improvements, make improvements. So we got to stop beating ourselves up, it's never going to be a perfect business from the get go, we're going to everything shifted, things change, and you've thought one thing was going to happen, but it didn't see a pivot. That's that's the life, right?

Nate Simpson 29:18
And then yeah, and then when you're getting that feedback and having those experiences, that's where the network comes back into play. And that's where your professional associations come into play is that you can rely on them for, for advice and input. If there's something that comes up in an experience that may be just beyond the horizon of your capacity to address. That's where having that wide network can be a real benefit

Roger Pierce 29:43
or lean on others, advisors and mentors and colleagues. And

Nate Simpson 29:48
also, I should say as well, you know, in addition to SMPS, which I noted before, there's, you know, different other resources for anybody that is curious. little business development and all of that type of thing. One, one that I've really enjoyed was the business development podcast, hosted by Kelly Kennedy based out of Edmonton, Alberta. So that's one that I would encourage, whether you're in business development or marketing or, you know, senior leadership, or heck, even, you know, somebody early in your career, at any firm, it doesn't have to be architecture, engineering or construction sector. But if you have a curiosity about aspects of business development, that's, that's a resource that that I've leaned on, as well as the Society for marketing, professional services.

Roger Pierce 30:35
Good plugs, I love it. I love people when they love when people share resources. That's great. Well, listen, I think unfortunately, that's all the time we have. I want to thank you, Nate Simpson, very much for sharing your entrepreneurial journey and experiences. You've given us a lot of good content here. I really appreciate it. And I think you've helped helped entrepreneurs who are going to be thinking about taking this journey themselves. So thank you very much.

Nate Simpson 30:57
You're very welcome. Roger, thank you for the opportunity. I appreciate it very much.

Roger Pierce 31:01
One last favor. If someone wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way to connect email or website or

Nate Simpson 31:07
Nate at Nate simpson.ca? Or find me on LinkedIn? Excellent,

Roger Pierce 31:11
super, add to our listeners. Thank you for being here. And be sure to return again for more insights from the unsure entrepreneur. That's it for now.

Outro 31:21
That's it for this episode of the onshore entrepreneur podcast. Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss other candid conversations with small business owners. And be sure to check us out at unsure entrepreneur.com